Chapter Text
WINTERFELL - 305 AC
--- The Battle for Dawn ---
They didn't want to leave Bran alone in the Godswood, but he had made them promise they would get to the castle if he didn't come back to them within ten minutes. They had waited ever so patiently, Arya whispering the passing seconds under her breath, while Jon tried to block out the screaming from the battlefield.
They had waited an extra three minutes even as Bran's eyes stayed milky white, only leaving when they could no longer hear Drogon's screeches in the distance. Jon grabbed Arya's arm and pulled her along, insisting that they had to get to Sansa before it was too late.
For every doorway they passed through, Jon and Arya both smeared the blood from their slit palms onto the door and gave a silent prayer to the gods. When they had finally fetched Sansa from the crypts, Jon brought a small dagger out from under his mail and chain and told her to do the same.
The Night King was following them, they could all tell. When the castle's temperature first plunged around them, Jon had let out a sharp curse and urged them to run faster.
'He's here. He's gaining on us.' Jon had whispered furiously.
It was the first time since they were reunited that either sister had heard true panic bleed into his voice.
Inevitably, he found them. They had run through far too many hallways and lost all their strength, and he cornered them near the family quarters with his sacrificed sons of Craster. Only then did their palms start to tingle. The blood dripping down to the floor felt ablaze, suffocating in the cold. Yet it felt like a rebirth. Blood is cleansing, blood is pure, blood is revenge.
It felt like cooking Walder Frey's sons and poisoning his family at The Twins.
It felt like setting Ramsey's own dogs on him in the kennels at Winterfell.
It felt like executing the mutineers who stabbed him to death at Castle Black.
Blood is cleansing.
Blood is pure.
Blood is revenge.
.............
200 years earlier, Jon opened his eyes.